Cord of Wood

This cord of wood calculator will tell you how much wood you have in a stack of firewood. Simply enter the dimensions of your stack in feet and hit calculate.

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A full 4x4x8 foot cord of wood.

What is a cord? There are differences between the way many people measure firewood, but a true legal cord of wood is 128 cubic feet of stacked wood.

To calculate a cord of wood simple multiply Width x Height x Length and divide that by 128. That will tell you how many cords you have.

There are several common measurements for firewood used in the USA. The only official measurement, and in many areas the only legal measurement is a cord. There is a huge difference between a full cord of wood and other types of cords, like a face cord, a rick and a fireplace cord.

A lot of consumers are confused by these different measurements and end up getting a lot less wood than they were expecting. Knowing how much firewood is in a full cord, and the differences between these measurements, will help ensure you are actually getting the amount of wood you are paying for. Learn about the differences between these different firewood measurements.

How much is a cord of wood?

A cord of wood (sometimes misspelled “chord”, which is the spelling of a musical chord) is any dimension of stacked wood that will add up to 128 cubic feet. This measurement is derived from the common firewood dimension of a 4’x4’x8′ stack.

Wood that is not stacked and instead thrown into a loose pile has more air space between the spaces so it would require different measurements. This article assumes the firewood is neatly stacked.

To measure a stack of wood, get the height, width and depth in feet. Multiply these three numbers together. This will tell you how many cubic feet you have. Since a cord is 128 cubic feet, divide the number of cubic feet in your stack by 128. That will tell you how many cords you have.

height x width x depth ÷ 128 = cords

The common dimension to get a cord of wood is 4’x4’x8 but there are many dimensions that will add up to 128 cubic feet. Examples are 2x4x16 and 1x4x32.

Using full feet for the width can be a problem since standard length for pieces of firewood is usually 16 inches. So a stack of 16″ firewood can only be 16″ wide or a multiple of 16.

In other words when stacking standard 16″ firewood the width of your dimension will be based on the number of stacks or rows.

1 stack = 16″ wide

2 stacks side by side = 32″ wide

3 stacks side by side = 48″ or 4′ wide.

The standard 4x4x8 dimension would be 3 stacks 4′ high and 8′ long.

Here are the cord of wood dimensions based on the number of stacks. These dimensions assume you have 16″ pieces stacked 4′ high.

1 stack = 16″x4’x24′

2 stacks = 32″x4’x12′

3 stacks = 4’x4’x8′

4 stacks = 64″x4’x6′

These measurements assume there is no space between the stacks. If you have space between the stacks, which a few inches of space is recommended for air circulation, these of course will have to be factored in.

Cord of wood dimensions will be different if the wood is not stacked. In a loose pile, wood pieces will be more random so they will take up more space than pieces stacked together tightly. It’s hard to get an accurate measurement with a heaping pile but consider around 180 cubic feet for the cord of wood dimensions of unstacked wood.

In any stack of wood there is going to be air space between the pieces. The more tightly stacked the wood is, the more solid wood you will have in a cord of wood. Some people like to criss-cross the wood when they stack it. This can sometimes help in drying and is a way to stabilize the ends. This is fine, except for when it comes to measuring the wood, there will be more air space between the pieces and less solid wood in a cord. For a loose unstacked pile of wood the air space will be even greater. In this case you can figure around 180 cubic feet per cord.

The amount of solid wood in a cord can depend on the size and shapes of the pieces and who stacks it. One person may be better at stacking and will be able to fit more pieces in a cord. Because of this, firewood measurements are not exact. You may get a load of wood that measures out to be a full cord on the truck, but then when you stack it, it may measure out be a few cubic feet more or less. This may be just from differences in fitting the pieces together. Some honest wood sellers may add on a little extra wood just to account for this.

Cord of wood dimensions are easy to measure when wood is stacked, but not so easy if it is not stacked. This is one reason to buy wood from someone who stacks the wood on the delivery truck so you can measure the wood and verify the dimensions before they unload it.

First thing we need to do is turn your 15.5 inches into feet. Since a foot is 12″ we can get that by dividing 15.5 by 12. That gives us 1.29 feet for the width of the stack. Now multiply height x width x depth 7×1.29×16. This gives 144.48 cubic feet. Since a cord of wood is 128 cubic feet, we take your cubic foot volume of the stack, 144.48 and divide it by 128. This gives you 1.12875 cords. I would round that off to 1.1 cords.

You are correct with your math. That comes out to around $530 per cord. Where are you located? The price of firewood varies depending on what part of the country you are in, I sell wood for $350 per cord where I am, and that is delivered. I would shop around, that sounds very high.

If the wood is thrown in the truck, just measure the dimensions of the space that the wood takes up in the truck. Figure around 180 cubic feet per cord. Multiply width x depth x height gives you cubic feet. If there are wheel wells or other things in the bed that take up space, subtract the space they take up. Divide the total volume by 180. That will give you a rough cord estimate. It is hard to get an accurate measurement with wood that is not stacked. The length of the pieces should not matter in a loose pile.

I live in southeast Georgia and have several cords (4X4X8) of seasoned oak firewood. What is the going price for a single cord of firewood in this area? Plus, what are the dimensions of a “rick” of wood?

Am I being taught correctly? There have been ones who are very upset with me because of how the measurements are being done. but this is how the program has requested it to be done. I came on this site and noticed that it is 4 x 4 x 8 for a cord of wood. I am getting confused now. thank you.

I just had two standard pickup loads delivered a few weeks ago. Due to weather conditions and other issues, like Hurricane Irene, I wasn’t able to finish stacking it until this past weekend. Like someothers have stated a standard bed of a pickup is usually 4’wide x 2’high by 8’long makint this 62 cubic feet or one half a cord. The wood delivered was not stacked in the bed of the pickup but thrown happhazardly. I stacked it and upon measuring it I received approximately 96 cubic feet or 2/3 of a cord. This makes perfect sense with all of the wasted space that occurs when the wood is not stacked. I live in NE Pennsylvania and paid $150 for 2/3 of a cord. I called and complained and will receive another pickup load giving me one cord based on 3 loads. Hope this helps.

Barrie, He explained how to figure out the dimensions. 16x7x6=672
If the wood is stacked divide 672 by 128(cubic Ft of 1cord stacked)=5.25 cords.
If it is NOT stacked divine 672 by 180(cubic Ft of 1 cord unstacked)=3.73 cords.

Admin,
Just so you know. Your information is the best i found on how to figure the dimensions. Thank you for posting.

Everyone else,
Stop before you post read what is posted. Admin answered your question somewhere. And if it wasnt answered read the postings anyways and try to figure it out with out being lazy. Use your brain.

In suburban Rochester NY. I lived for over 30 years. Wood is sold by the face cord 8ftx4ft(high)x16inches long.
A full cord would be stacked 4ftx8ftx48inches or 3 logs of 16inch length. If you get more than 16inch logs you are making out. I now live in texas and they are crazy they are telling me that two stacks 4x8x16inch are a cord. They are ripping people off here and they also sell it delivered which they say means delivered unloaded and stacked. They also use a term half cord. We never used that term in NY it was always a face cord or a full cord. They said a face cord was a rick. but they don’t sell it that way. what is the going price for seasoned hardwood in the central texas area. and what dimension. I will be cutting wood with a partner and want to offer a fair price but don’t want to be taken advantage of.

I just finished piling up the wood that came down in the freak October snowstorm. It’s mostly small stuff – between 2 and 6 inches in diameter, cut to lenghts of approximately 18 inches. It’s piled up in a heap that is essentially the shape of a half sphere with a radius of about 4 feet. So I estimate the volume to be 134 cubic feet, or 1/2 of 4/3*Pi*R^3

i just had a cord delivered and they stacked it in a circle. the wood is 14 inches long.
the pile is 36 to 40 inches tall and the diameter averages 68 to 70 inches across. did i get a cord?
it looks small to me. please help
p.s. i live in so. cal and a mixed cord was $310 this year!
thanks

2 pickup loosely loaded above the bed rails is bought a 1.2 cord delivered I would chard at least $300 -350 for type wood!Flat out it playing hard work.I’ve been cutting wood 17yrs would sell one load and haven’t to much work an money involded saw.spliter,truck GAS PRICES NOW. Mike

for the most part,i don’t think this has as much to do with our education as it does with personal charachter. a lot f people would rather ask than guess and be incorrect. furthermore, a lot of people are terrified of math and problem solving. i personally found it refreshing to be reminded of math i haven’t used in 25 years and with a bit of practice, i’ll feel confident that i’m not being taken advantage of when i buy firewood.

I had just delivered a cord of wood to gentleman and he had me stack it in 2 rows. He measured it and called me and said I shorted him 11 cubic feet. The wood is cut 18″ long. I want my customers to be happy but having trouble figuring how many pieces would make 11 cubic ft. Thank you.

I keep getting shorted by my wood delivery people.
I’m I doing something wrong in my measurements?
I stacked it in a single row 4.2 H x 18.5 L 16D. I have it marked with wood to where is should be high so I know its a cord.. it didn’t meet that mark.
I come out with 103 cubic ft. The delivery person said if I stacked it 4x4x8 or three rows it would be exactly 128.

I’m so confused. Is this some new modern math or something?

128 cubic feet is a cord anyway you measure it correct? His logs were cut tight I say 14 avg but I gave him 16 so I feel better.

According to your measurements, you are correct at 103 cubic feet. It doesn’t matter how you stack it, one row or 3, 128 cubic feet is 128 cubic feet. And if they average 14″ long, that’s more like 93 cubic feet. I would say you are well short of a cord.

I have a pickup, 5.5′ x 8′ and loaded it with 14″ long rounds placed on end one level high. Fairly tight fit but fender wells on the inside. All that is probably irrelevant. Time on my hands so I measured diameter of each round and came up with 41.8 cubic feet of solid wood (pi x radius squared x 14″). How close to a full cord of split wood might this be? These will be split what I’d call a ‘normal’ size. I’m guessing 30% air so it would be about 60/64ths?

Is a cord measured differently in New Zealand? I just bought a cord that when stacked measures only 18x4x1 (72 cu. ft.). Only caveat is that it was a mix of some normal cordwood, but a little over half of it is off-cuts (basically 2×4 lumber, 12″ in length) which stacks very tightly, of course. Is this still acceptable as a full cord?

Hi just found this site and would love to have you answer this question, my husband is looking to sell off some of our wood to a friend but he doesn”t want to have to split it first. So we want to know what demensions we should use for a face cord of unsplit hard wood. Just a little background each year we get 20 cords of maple and oak logs delivered most of these are fireplace size so they may only need to be split in half to be used. Husband just wants to build a rack to fill as a guide to a face cord for selling a few face cords. just so you know we live in Michigan and we only pay 80.00 a cord for hardwood logs here. Thanks Karen

A face cord is usually considered to be 8 feet wide and 4 feet long, or the equivalent. Any dimension that adds up to a face with 32 square feet of surface area. It shouldn’t matter if the pieces are split or not.

im looking to sell firewood in the north ga area, im located in the cleveland hwy accross from the Tomato House, any one from white or lumpkin county knows where that is. im in a really big bind, and need money quite bad. i have a 9 month old son and my mower shop just is not bringing in the money required to feed a family. i have lots of oak and hickory, some of it is in really good shape, some cant be used. ill be selling it at $35 a stack. a stack is about 50 pieces of good seasoned wood.

I run a full-time woodlot in Heber Arizona and around here most people deliver a “cord” as a well rounded truck-load with no wood racks. This usually comes out to around 2/3 to 3/4 cord. To get an honest 128 cubic foot cord you need woodracks on your delivery truck! An honest cord is tightly stacked wood filling up a bed with racks all the way up.(on my 7 foot bed)
Needs to be filled about 3 inches short of all the way up on my 8 foot bed.

I’m a woodchuck. And I chuck wood. So how much wood can I chuck if I chuck all of this woodpile? I can not handle a ruler or tape measure since I don’t have thumbs. So I don’t have any dimensions. Oh, and I don’t do math because my brain is the size of a peanut. I really don’t even see in color, as far as I know… COME ON, THIS ISN’T ROCKET SCIENCE. LEARN BASIC MATH. Holy cow.

Around here, Oregon, prices vary upon location much as Admin has stated. Anywhere from $110 you come and get to $350 for Sweaty guy delivery. Check you local craigslist and the food stores bulletin boards(the little tear off numbers) for folks and prices. Now for the math. Click Start…Click “Run” …Type in C A L C …smack the enter key, enter your dimensions and Viola you have your cubic feet. Type of wood will factor into price as well, weed trees (Alder) will normally be cheaper than Fir and Oak. Keep on burning and thanks Admin for being an uber patient person.

Thanks for the comments Murph. You can report the less than honest firewood dealers to your local weights and measures department. Just a couple months ago I had a guy come out and buy some wood from me. It just happened that he was our local weights and measures agent. He said they get a lot of calls from people who have been ripped off by wood cutters. He said that when he contacts the firewood dealers in question they are usually cooperative and make things right with the customer. He also said he thinks in most cases these firewood dealers are not trying to rip people off, a lot of them just don’t know how to properly measure and calculate a cord of wood. That may be the case with some but I am guessing a lot of them know how to play dumb when they are caught.

But it was kind of funny, we were loading up his trailer and stacking it to the 1/3 cord we had it measured out to be. I usually add a little more wood on just to be safe and for good business. But I could tell he was a little uncomfortable with taking more than the exact amount.

I don’t know of any holz hauzen calculator. If it is a consistent taper I would think you could take a measurement of the circle at the bottom and one at the top. If you use Pi r squared with both of those measurements and then figure out the average of those two figures. You could even take a measurement in the middle and throw that into the average. Mutiply the average diameter by height and that should give you something close to the volume.

I have stacked wood in the shed that is7ft high,6ftwide, 2ft deep. I stacked the 2ft wood in the shed. The fellow said that was a cord because it was 24inces. I think he is wrong cause I’ve stacked a lot of wood. I think he meant 1 face cord,or am I wrong?

This site is a great resource. I’m amazed by folks who have no issues communicating through a computer yet are complete strangers to basic math. In our area (north of Atlanta), I’m seeing firewood displayed in aluminum cages that usually hold white plastic, above-ground cisterns. The top bars have been taken off & the cisterns removed, leaving an 80-cubic-foot cage. I’ll take note of the asking price today, since (thanks to you) I now know that such a cage will hold a little shy of two-thirds (63%) of a bush cord.

This site is a great resource. I’m amazed by folks who have no issues communicating through a computer yet are complete strangers to basic math. I can’t say much, though, since I misspelled my e-address in my original post (LOL). In our area (north of Atlanta), I’m seeing firewood displayed in aluminum cages that usually hold white plastic, above-ground cisterns. The top bars have been taken off & the cisterns removed, leaving an 80-cubic-foot cage. I’ll take note of the asking price today, since (thanks to you) I now know that such a cage will hold a little shy of two-thirds (63%) of a bush cord.

I am going to be having a house built. The builder will be using kiln-dried douglas fir. Is there any reason I can not use the end cuts to burn in a wood stove? I hate to see them go to landfill, especially since I will have paid good money for them.

As long as it’s not pressure treated wood, there is no reason I know of not to burn it in a wood stove. Douglas fir is good firewood, I burn it all the time in mine, shouldn’t make a difference if it comes from lumber.

I have a stack of wood that measures, 16 feet long, 5 feet high, and 16 inch’s wide? How much wood do I have? I actually have 3 stacks of that measurement, but would like to know how much wood is in one stack first, and then all 3. Thanks for the answers.

I wrote this article as an attempt to teach you how to calculate a cord of wood. I wasn’t expecting you all to want me to do all the math for you. Instead of having me do all the math for everyone, maybe you all can tell me how I can change this article to make it more understandable.

Using your cord formula I was able measure three of my wood piles to see how much wood I have. I rounded my footage up or down to get even feet. I figure that the difference would account for the air spaces and the in equal ness in the stacks. Thank you very much.!

Whats the difference in a cord when it is loosely stacked instead of tightly stacked? If the measurements are 3 ft x 4.33 ft x 8.17 ft approx. 106 cubic ft. if tightly stacked. How much less is it when it’s loosely stacked where the logs are turned the opposite way on alternating rows so it will dry faster?

This year I bought my firewood tree length. The logger I purchased from stated that there was a conversion factor for tree length to cord wood but he did not remember what it was. He did state that tree length ends up being a lesser amount when worked up into cordwood. Do you know what the conversion factor is ? I bought 16 cords of tree length, what should I expected to have as standard cords when it is cut and split?

I dont know how you would come up with a reliable conversion. There are a lot of variables like taper and how straight the tree is. You could look up the Scribner tables to convert to board feet and then from there convert that to cubic feet and then cords. It’s a bit of math but that’s probably the direction I would go. If the logs have a lot of taper you may have to factor that in.

I have a stack of 18″ split wood that measures 12′ long by 4′ high by 7′ deep. Can you tell me if I am correct that I have 2.64 full cords ? Wasn’t sure if I was to include that each piece is 18″ in my calculation.

Had a cord of firewood delivered and stacked. When bad weather stopped, looked at what was delivered. Was 17″ wide, 4′ feet high, and 10′ feet, 4″ inches long. How short is this from a full cord?? thanks, emmette

Rather than argue about the size of a cord of wood, one should base the cost of wood on its heat content. See tablehttp://www.chimneysweeponline.com/howood.htm. Also, are you using an open fireplace or an enclosed stove of some sort? Open fireplaces are pretty much worthless for heating a house since most of the heat simply goes up the chimney. Remember, whatever air goes up the chimney has to come into the house from outside, which also cools off the inside air. Fireplace inserts are the most economical method of burning wood. I’ve been burning Osage Orange in my insert for 27 yrs and have never had to clean my chimney. OO burns HOT and leaves little ash. It burns at about one inch of diameter per hour. IOW, a 6″ dia. log will burn for six hours. Compare that to what you’re using and go from there. Osage Orange grows in every state in the country, too. It will spark occasionally, so you need a small-mesh screen to cover your fireplace if it does not have doors.

Someone on craigslist is selling 4 maple trees he just cut down. He has four tees equaling about 80 feet. the diameter ranges from 24 to 36 inches. they aren’t cut into rounds so we would cut them and pick them up. we’re in Washington. what seems like a reasonable price?

Hi Emmette, I think that you only received one half of a cord. 17″ x 4′ x 10’4″ = approx 58 cubic feet. Divide 58cf by 128cf = 0.453125, or 45% of a cord. They owe you 55% of a cord. Make ’em deliver!
BTW, thanks admin for this great site. Lots of great info!

I paid $800.00 for 3 cords of split wood. They are 16″ in length. The truck used had a box 4 ft by 4 ft by 8 ft. The wood was thrown in the box. The centre of the pile was about 6 inches higher in the box. Would that be 3 cords that was delivered?

Hello Carol,
I fear that you may not have received 3 cords of wood based upon the measurements that you provided. A true cord of firewood is 4ft high by 4ft deep by 8ft wide. Those are the exact measurements of the box containing the wood as delivered. Also, firewood should be stacked using the 4x4x8 method to prove the quantity received is correct. I think that you only got 1 cord, maybe a little more. You may want to contact the dealer and inquire about a refund. (I’d like to see them prove that they stuffed 3 cords of wood into a space that’s only 128 cubic feet in total volume!)